Armstrong Says Passion for Tour Won't Die

Special measures are in place to protect Lance Armstrong as he goes for a record-tying fifth straight Tour de France victory, and about 24,000 police officers will provide security at the event.

"Lance Armstrong will be protected," interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy said in a television interview broadcast Saturday. "In my mind, it's not to protect him from the public but from the irresponsible, the unbalanced."

Sarkozy gave no details about the security for Armstrong.

But he hopes the 31-year-old Texan will be warmly welcomed by the fans who traditionally line the Tour route despite the tensions this year between France and the United States over the war in Iraq.

"There is no reason for things to go badly. We are friends of the Americans, the Americans are our friends," Sarkozy said. "Lance Armstrong has won the Tour de France four times. He's a huge champion. He may win a fifth. There's no reason to mix him in international debates or politics."

Referring to Armstrong's comeback from cancer to win his first Tour in 1999, Sarkozy added: "He had this terrible illness, which he overcame with a lot of courage.

"If we don't applaud and support him, then who should we support and applaud?"

Sarkozy described security measures in place for the 100th running of the Tour as "exceptional."

"The Tour is a festival and for the festival to succeed, there must be no incidents," he said. "It's a big job."

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LOVIN' THE TOUR:@ It takes a special type of person to survive the Tour de France, a punishing three-week cross-country trek run that includes lung-burning climbs up towering Alpine peaks. But Lance Armstrong has learned to love it.

"I like the Tour far more now than five years ago," said Armstrong, who is attempting to tie Miguel Indurain's record of five straight victories.

"My passion for this event, for its history, never stops growing, and I don't think it will ever die," Armstrong said in an interview published Saturday in the French newspaper L'Equipe.

The newspaper this week ranked Armstrong seventh on a list of great Tour racers and winners, one spot ahead of Indurain, who won from 1991-1995.

"That's impossible! I think I should be listed behind him," Armstrong said when told that he was in front of Indurain. "After all, he won five consecutive Tours."

First on the list was Belgian Eddy Merckx, who also won five times, but not consecutively, in 1969-1972 and 1974.

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FITNESS TESTS:@ Fitness tests on the 198 riders in the Tour have revealed some surprising statistics.

Their average height is about 5 feet, 10 1/2 inches. The smallest is French rider Samuel Dumoulin of the Jean Delatour team, who is just 5-2, Tour doctors said in a statement.

The three tallest riders are Andy Flickinger of France, Italian Paolo Fornaciari and Russian Vladimir Karpets, all 6-4.

Another surprising statistic is that their hearts beat slowly, with an average rate of just 50 beats a minute.

Denmark's Michael Blaudzun of the CSC team has the lowest heartbeat at just 31 beats a minute.

The lightest rider, Alexandre Botcharov of Russia, weighed in at 124 pounds, while the riders' average weight is 174 1/2 pounds.

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DOPING: The World Anti-Doping Agency says it is encouraged by the decision of Tour de France organizers to allow it to send observers to the three-week competition for the first time.

"For us, it's very positive and symbolic because it's the hundredth edition of the Tour de France," WADA spokesman Frederic Donze said.

"It's the first time we have been invited so it's a good way to increase the confidence of athletes and the public in the testing procedure," he said.

The three WADA representatives will observe doping-control procedures for the first five days of Tour, which started Saturday and ends July 27.

The observers will issue a report after the Tour that will say whether anti-doping rules were respected and could suggest possible improvements.